Tonight we will be joining UO Stratics in the ten-year anniversary of the UO House of Commons - come join us at 7pm EST in IRC to chat with the dev team about whatever's on your mind!

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Do you have a favorite number? Perhaps a lucky one that means something special to you or one that happens to pop up in the darndest of places? Now, those of you conspiracy theorists who saw that film, The Number 23, put away your tinfoil hats and ponder a bit on yours. I wouldn't say I really have a lucky number so much as I've recently grown rather fond of one number in particular - one hundred and fourteen. Now, given any number just on its own without context is rather ambiguous and mundane... Without something to define or quantify in some fashion, a number is just a number. One hundred and fourteen what exactly...? Years? Well, Google informs me that one hundred and fourteen years ago, W.K. Dickson received a patent on motion picture film and was hailed as the inventor of the motion picture camera... but that's not why it's my favorite number. One hundred and fourteen protons? That's how many element 114, also called ununquadium or eka-lead, on the Periodic table of the Elements had for the few seconds of its half life before decaying... or so Wikipedia said. The amount of search results for 114 is staggering... and across such a broad array of topics, too - from asteroids almost 100km in diameter like 114 Kassandra to the total number of "suras" or "chapters" in the Qur'an, the Muslim holy book. But the one reference to the number that means the most to me and hopefully will strike a chord with many, many others is one you won't find on a search engine or in any encyclopedia, but one you'd find celebrated on this very Web site.

Join the staffmembers of both UO Stratics and EA/Mythic's Live team this Tuesday, February 12th as we come together once more for the 114th UO House of Commons to discuss the current state and future of Ultima Online. The UO HoC offers a unique opportunity for the community to ask direct questions of the development team in a real-time environment. Tuesday's HoC marks the 10th anniversary of the very first House of Commons Developer chat held way back on February 12th, 1998 between our then fledgling network and the team from Origin Systems, Inc. It's hard to believe that ten years have passed since that first chat concluded, but the premise was simple and straightforward from the beginning and it stuck... the <a target="_blank" href=http://uohoc.stratics.com/>UO House of Commons page</A> on Stratics reflects that in its motto: "In order to form a more common bond between the Peoples and Rulers of Britannia." There have been plenty of both peoples and rulers that have come and gone these ten years past, but the UO HoC marches on! Believe it or not, but we still have the chat logs from every one of the previous 113 Developer chats as well as over 30 UO Celebrity chats with various members of the community like ImaNewbie of the popular Web comic and Tug from Tugsoft, creator of UO Assist, available for browsing. Take a trip with me now down memory lane as I highlight a few of those burning questions on every UO player's mind back in 1998 at that very first UO House of Commons...
</P> <BLOCKQUOTE>DenDragon - Has any consideration been given to trash cans? Or a method for players to delete unwanted items? Stormwynd - that's a neat ideaStormwynd - Maybe a player house only feature? DenDragon - I see your point... Maybe in towns and houses only? DesignerD - Lord knows we'd love to add ways to reduce item count We're just very... uhh... "cautious" (read "cynical") about the ways which players will use features
v - as in it requires a player house like a vendor or guild stone? DenDragon - heh, I understand DesignerD - Our first rule for a design is, "OK, how will they exploit it?"

Ahh yes... 1998. I yearn for such simple times when the hot topic was getting trashcans!</BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE>HellBoyEC - ..are there any event/plot specific questions I can answer? DenDragon - HellBoy--I guess I'll throw forward the obligitory Necromancy question. DenDragon - Are we close to seeing it implemented, or has it been set on the back burner? HellBoyEC - I think Storm can field that.... HellBoyEC - The Liche's who are making waves currently HellBoyEC - are some of the earliest examples of necromancy in the game Stormwynd - It has been on the backburner for a while, but I hope to get time to work on it real soon now. Stormwynd - There is already one spell implemented, but I haven Stormwynd - oops... haven't had a chance to continue on them lately. DenDragon - I take it Necromancy will be considered a new skill.. Along with other possible new magicks? Stormwynd - Possibly....
</BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE>DenDragon - One more question on my part: The dungeon Doom--will that be completed within the current UO world, or will an expansion CD be necessary? DesignerD - Can't answer that Sorry!

(As a sidenote, both Necromancy and the Dungeon Doom were released (unleashed?) in the Ultima Online: Age of Shadows expansion in early 2003! Should we be calling DenDragon "NostraDenmus" instead?) </BLOCKQUOTE> <CENTER></CENTER>

We plan on discussing a wide variety of topics with the developers and general chat will be in our IRC channel #ultima-online before, during, and after the HoC. We hope to see you there as we celebrate 10 years of UO House of Commons chats! </P></DIV></DIV>

Stratics is the oldest continually running MMORPG Fansite on the Internet. Founded in 1997 Stratics has served the Ultima Online Community for 18 years. We strive to provide the most complete social experience for Ultima Online players.